


wishes (or; stolen time at high altitudes)

by tamsinb



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Other, Prompt Fill, i had to keep alt tabbing while i wrote this because i got too tender, yall asked for this dont blame me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:46:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28983591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tamsinb/pseuds/tamsinb
Summary: Betsy and Mike stargaze after a playoffs game.
Relationships: Mike Townsend & Betsy Trombone, Mike Townsend/Betsy Trombone
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	wishes (or; stolen time at high altitudes)

**Author's Note:**

> these were prompts i got that i am putting on ao3 because i do not have a tumblr but i liked how this turned out so i didn't want it to just live in a google doc

* * *

**betsy and mike, #1 - watching a meteor shower**

Betsy couldn’t remember which of them suggested the idea. Maybe Betsy had been talking about being a city kid their whole life, born and raised in Philly even once Rhys had shipped out to Moab, all the way until they’d relocated to Seattle, which they knew by numbers was a good deal smaller than Philly but even now it was unfamiliar enough not to  _ feel _ that way. And maybe they were talking about light pollution like they seemed to surprisingly often and maybe that was when Mike suggested it? Or maybe Mike, native Seattleite he was, mentioned some place a drive away from the city where the freespilling light faded away, somewhere up in the mountains, and maybe Betsy had said  _ nah that’s stupid I mean we’re literally in Yellowstone right now we could just- _

Or maybe it had happened some other way, Betsy didn’t really feel like sifting through half-processed memories to tell for sure. It was a cold night in Yellowstone, this late in the season it’d be more surprising if it wasn’t, and luckily they’d thought to wear contacts or else they’d have to wipe fog off their glasses every five seconds. Like Mike was having to.

They’d only had the idea today, planned to do it sometime later on in the season, but Goodwin’s pitching somehow earning two wins at once and ending the series mercifully quick forced their hand. And so they’d rushed from the stadium and raced the falling night up the side of a mountain that probably wasn’t  _ that _ big but Mike had needed to practically push them up the trail to make it in time.

Betsy dug their fingers into the rough fabric of the blanket and listened to the sounds leaves made against each other. Tilted their head backwards, craning it all the way around and savoring how any way they looked the sky was dotted three times over with stars. They’d never known that you could see that the stars were different sizes. With their eyes they drew lines between them and tried to connect a cogent shape but they got dizzy before they got anything good. And then a ribbon trailed across the sky, arc bent only slightly to wrap around the black hole that loomed in the sky, kaleidoscopic ring of distorted stars the only positive to define its negative.

“Oh shit!! Mike, did you see that?”

“huh? no, i was-” and he held up his glasses to indicate.

“Dude a fucking like shooting star or whatever just- fuck, I didn’t like, think they were REAL!”

“you didn’t think. shooting stars were real?”

“Don’t say it like I’m fucking stupid I mean I knew they were  _ real _ I just didn’t know they actually looked as sick as people said. Thought they were exaggerating.”

“where was it?”

“Oh, uh, right up there.”

“i can’t tell where you’re pointing.”

“Bitch right fuckin- ugh, come here.” and Betsy hopped near on top of his lap, leaning over him to put their arm directly in line with his eyes. Just in time for a second one to cross from the same sector of sky.

“oh shit!!”

“Yeah, right??” Betsy dropped their arm and settled down close next to Mike, right leg crossing over his left, and they didn’t even have time to wonder if it was an overreach because his arm was already wrapping around their shoulder and it wasn’t warm but it was  _ there _ and that was more than enough for them.

“are you making a wish?” The way they were both craning their heads to the spot the falling stars came from meant Mike’s chin was nearly on top of Betsy’s head.

“I dunno…”

“oh c’mon you gotta make a wish.”

“Don’t you think that shit might be kinda dangerous?”

“whaddya mean?”

“Like there’s evil gods and shit up there, right? What if one of them hears it?”

“you worry too much.”

“In this splort?? No such thing.”

“well, i’m making a wish. you’re free to join me if you’d like.”

Betsy grumbled but looked back up at the sky anyway. They felt Mike holding his breath. Another streak across the sky. They closed their eyes. Not sure if it was necessary, but it felt right. And they wished, and they only meant it to be something shallow but they heard Mike saying something behind them in the faintest whisper and even though they couldn’t make it out they felt something upswell in their heart and something core and genuine poured through their mind and out to where they hoped only celestial descent could hear it.

They opened their eyes and the sky was still. Swiveled around to face Mike, visible in much the same way the black hole was. The kind of person who, if you weren’t looking carefully, tended to be more conspicuous for his absence. Betsy clenched their teeth. Mike finished wishing and brought his eyes down to meet theirs. He smiled.

“so, what’d you wish for?”

“I’m pretty sure I’m like  _ way _ not supposed to say that. I’ll explode if I do.”

“i don’t think that’s the rule. it’s supposed to be that it won’t come true, right?”

“Well in that case I’d rather fucking explode, I’m never telling.”

“aw c’mon bets you can te-”

And at that moment a flurry of stars burst across the sky, somewhere behind Betsy’s head. They didn’t see it but the light was enough to illuminate the spot next to them, casting enough light to reveal Mike’s form as no different from the other shadows it dissolved, an impression that was never really there in the first place.

It only lasted a moment before he reappeared.

“ll me! woah, that was weird. am i back now?”

“Yeah. You’re back.”

“cool. anyway about your wish-”

“Doesn’t fucking matter. Already didn’t come true.”

“oh.”

Betsy kicked their legs across Mike’s to sit crosswise on his lap. Leaned their head down into the space between his chest and collarbone. No more warmth than the night air. Whatever. They had a jacket.

“Knew I shouldn’t even have fucking bothered. It was a stupid wish anyway.”

Mike was silent for a long moment. He leaned backwards onto his hands, taking a little more of Betsy’s weight onto himself.

“don’t blame your wish. probably just a problem with the stars.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean.”

“they were probably just out of. uh. wish juice. not enough to make your wish. it happens.”

Betsy pushed their head up to glare at Mike until his fake-serious face cracked into a smile. “Michael Townsend you are the dumbest fucker alive.”

“guilty.”

They nestled back in and yawned despite themself. Felt their eyes drift shut. Figured this was as good a trap as any, if Mike felt like disappearing now they’d fall and bust their ass. And they knew he’d never let that happen. Betsy let Mike carry all the weight they had in their body.

* * *

**mike and betsy, #38 - a person’s weight as they lie on top of you**

“betsy? betsy?”

No response. And if Betsy ever didn’t respond to something it meant they were either asleep, or dead. And given the way he could feel their tiny frame rising and falling against him as they breathed, he figured they still had a little life left in them. Their cheek pressed against his shoulder and Mike was almost surprised to find out they didn’t snore. It’d make too much sense if they did.

Mike felt his arms strain a bit but he knew if he shifted Betsy would wake up and he couldn’t risk that. They hadn’t been sleeping well lately, Mike knew. They didn’t really make any attempts to hide it, responding to goodnight wishes with a “yeah whatever I’m gonna go chug a Mlonster” and sending semi-deranged paragraphs to his phone at all odd hours of the night. (He could only hope he was bearing the brunt of those.)

It was one of those things Betsy often did that fell somewhere at the intersection of ‘doing whatever they felt like’ and ‘trying to be cool’ and ‘cry for help’. A triple point, of some description, and Mike was hopeless to try to figure out which of the three it was.

Their head started to slip backwards and Mike gently caught it, easing it back into place and leaving his hand there just for safety. Despite their best efforts to keep it as fucked up as possible, Betsy’s hair was always soft and he couldn’t resist running his hand through in a slow scratching motion. Their lips curled up into a thin smile and their head pressed in closer. Mike looked up at the sky.

The view of the stars from the shadows was almost the same as it had been before, one of the blessed few things that was. Hard to hang out casually with anyone anymore with just about every activity presenting some retinal cacophony. It had been all he could do to follow the Garages on their playoff run. Not to mention the constant threats of being zapped momentarily out of existence.

It was sweet of Betsy to figure out something they could do out of the sun and out of the light. Well, he thought it was their idea, anyway. If it was his then it was sweet of them to come. It was something Mike knew and accepted as self-evident about himself, his all-encompassing need to help people who needed it, and lord knows Betsy needed a  _ lot _ of help most days, even if it was just keeping problems they’d started on purpose for a laugh from blowing up too badly.

And yet Mike knew, maybe better than anyone at this point, the warm center of gentleness that Betsy had somewhere way deep down. Made all the more obvious by how many layers they put on to hide it, in the same way that thieves in movies would follow the density of security systems to find the safe with the hypervaluable memory chip or whatever inside. And so, even more than he’d want to help any given person, he wanted to stick with Betsy as much as whatever shadows fuckery this splort could throw at him next would allow, just to see what it might be like when they finally found some way to frantically stop throwing layer after layer of self defense on top, when that center stopped being seen only during rare cosmic syzygy and in happensance unguarded moments. He wanted to be around when they were able to show that to someone.

His mind almost instinctively danced around the issue of who he might like that someone to be. The stars had stopped falling and it was late enough now that the thin streaks of the galaxy’s arms were visible as a backdrop, nothing in the sky ever truly dark. He felt Betsy shiver.

“bets. hey, bets.” He shook them side to side a bit and they groaned and shook their head, which manifested more like pressing their cheek hard against them, pressing their lips into an adorable pucker.

“betsy it’s cold out here we’ve gotta get you back. don’t want you pitching with a cold.”

“I’m not cold…” they mumbled. “Got my jacket…”

“you’ve got  _ just _ your jacket, bets.”

“Not true. Got my binder, that’s plenty. Having your binder out is way cool these days Mikey don’t you know anything about fashion…”

“as true as that is. time to head down.”

“But it’s so soooooooon…”

“we’ve been here all night.”

“Not enough.”

“yeah,” sighed Mike. “never is.”

“Five more minutes?”

“sure. five more minutes.”

Their eyes settled back down closed and Mike wiggled his arms a bit, numb from the exertion. Oh well. He could last a bit more.

“you know, betsy. there's gonna come a day when we can say we survived this. when we can say it's finally really over. all of this bullshit, just. behind us. in the past. i promise that.”

He’d expected them to be back asleep immediately, but maybe he’d miscalculated. “How do you know?” spoken directly into his chest. “How can you be sure?”

Mike looked down and met their eyes.

“because i wished it on a star. so you know it’s true.”

_ “That _ was your wish??” and Betsy shoved off their stomach, bringing out an involuntary ‘oof’ from Mike as they hopped off his lap. “You fucking bastard of course there wasn’t any wish juice left for mine if you’re out here wishing shit like that!!”

With Betsy off he could finally let his arms slip and he fell backwards onto the blanket staring upwards into a vortex of stars, laughing both at the relief and at Betsy’s mock outrage.

“haha, sorry, sorry. my bad. i’ll be more careful.”

“You’d better be,” humphed Betsy, crossing their legs. “My wish was like super cool and sick and it’s your fault I’m never gonna have a motorcycle or be nine feet tall, or whatever.”

“yeah, yeah. what a shame.”

“...Yours was pretty cool too, though.”

Mike tilted his head up and silhouetted against the night sky Betsy was huddled inside their own too-big jacket, hands rubbing at their shoulders.

“you sure you’re not ready to go yet?”

Betsy shook their head.

“that’s fine. no need to rush.”

Mike closed his eyes and listened to the sound the world makes when it’s asleep. And for just a few stolen moments, the two of them had all the time in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> the problem: i do not have a tumblr and people are doing fun prompts  
> the solution: i make a google form in ten seconds  
> the outcome: i get cyberbullied into writing betsymike fluff
> 
> if you wanna you can send me stuff [here](https://forms.gle/JMmtQ4fnYsbuXHED8) too you're more than welcome and it doesn't even have to be about betsy if you don't want i mean it CAN be i'm not complaining but. i like other characters, right? i think i do. oh well


End file.
